Anticipated nursing care: an emerging concept in healthcare practice

Abstract

In recent years, the quality and safety of nursing care have been recognized as fundamental principles in healthcare systems. The timely and accurate execution of nursing interventions is essential to ensuring high-quality and safe patient outcomes. However, nurses face various challenges that can affect the timing of care. Some of these challenges include high workload, resource shortages, and job pressures. Consequently, some aspects of patient care may be delayed, performed later than planned, or missed altogether. As a result, missed nursing care is recognized as one of the major challenges in achieving high-quality and safe healthcare. This phenomenon can lead to several adverse outcomes for patients, including an increased risk of pressure ulcers, infections, medication errors, and hospital readmissions. In contrast to this phenomenon, a new concept called “anticipated nursing care” has emerged in nursing literature in recent years. Anticipated nursing care is defined as the intentional delivery of nursing interventions before their scheduled time or before a patient explicitly requests them, usually aimed at preventing problems and ensuring patient comfort. Examples of this phenomenon include administering medication before the scheduled time to prevent pain or symptoms of illness and waking patients early for scheduled interventions. This concept differs fundamentally from missed nursing care; while missed nursing care refers to delays or incomplete delivery of care, anticipated nursing care emphasizes early provision of care.